The eyes can’t unsee this. Spotted in a Hong Kong supermarket were cans of Coke, individually wrapped and sealed in plastic containers. Despite consulting all the scientists we know, we can’t find a single explanation to warrant such an excessive use of unnecessary plastic packaging.

One of the things I love the most about Japan is how most people here seem to have a non-ironic, totally open and serious love of all things cute. Taking the mundane and making it adorable is basically a Japanese art in and of itself; even their packaging is full of hidden messages and cute sayings.

Now, Japan’s Twitter users have been cooing over parcel company Yamato Kuroneko’s cardboard boxes, which feature adorable marching kitties that are revealed as you open the box. Because why not?

You may have noticed that Japanese product packaging tends to be completely covered with text in a variety of fonts and styles. If you’ve ever taken the time to read any of it, you’ve probably realised that quite a bit of it seems to be particularly chatty, going beyond the usual product description in order to occasionally impart some philosophical wisdom or advice.

Some companies even go as far as to include hidden messages to communicate directly with the consumer. Check out this gallery of some of the best.

Enough has been said about the level of customer service found in Japan that its reputation pretty much speaks for itself. But did you know that even the packaging your food comes in contains a message of appreciation for the customer?

If not, you’re not alone. In fact, many Japanese people might be surprised to find that their cartons of milk or box of chocolates contain hidden words of thanks, especially because these sentiments may not reveal themselves unless you eat everything or recycle the package properly.

Don’t you just hate it when you open up a bag of chips only to find that one third of the air-filled bag actually contains greasy goodness. Or how about when you crack open a box of cookies and are greeted with cardboard on both ends, squishing the available cookie space in half. Oh, the disappointment! Well get ready for a similar tale of a girl who thought she was buying a long lightning cable, but found that the product fell short of her expectations after opening it.

We’ve all been there. You excitedly tear off the wrapper on the new snack you’ve been waiting to try, only to find that it’s half the size of the picture on the box, or doesn’t contain the mint leaf daintily arranged on the image on the packaging. That’s why packaging runs the line “serving suggestion”, anyway – to let the manufacturer show the food at its best without being accused of, erm, lying.

A project from the delightfully named German website PUNDO3000, werbung gegen realität (“Adverts versus reality”) attempts to stab back at food manufacturers with painfully real photos of food items. We’re always on the look out for the gap between jazzed-up photos and the real deal, so join us after the jump for 31 of the best!

We’re sure that you’ve all by now had the experience of ordering a single item online only for it to arrive on your doorstep up in an enormous, oversized box or buried beneath a ludicrous amount of polystyrene. I have personally received boxes as large as a shoebox for a single videogame and spent the best part of five minutes trying to detach a single shrink-wrapped paperback book from a giant slab of cardboard that it was adhered to by Amazon’s over-zealous packing robots.

On Wednesday this week, however, a Japanese Twitter user may just have received the greatest example of surreal Amazon packaging yet.